Re: [WarInEur] Question on WIE Allied production

from
[ian raine]

Subject:

Re: [WarInEur] Question on WIE Allied production

From:

"ian raine"

Date:

Fri, 17 Jun 2005 14:44:11 +1000

"Allegedly", and I say that in quotes because someone once
convinced me of the truth of the following with a spreadsheet, if you put all
the common unit production over to the US once in the war (although note in
later years the CW runs out of men, not production points), and you count up how
many AP are new as opposed to rebuilds - and assume some of the early ones are
in fact rebuilds as well - you get about a 50/50 ratio. So factor that in across
the board, i.e. don't put all the new builds up front.

Then take away the Suez sourced units.

There was a part of this exercise which involved BGs and Repl
points as opposed to in production rebuilds - something along the lines of an
assumption the designer took some pps away to allow for the fact that the Allied
player would put BGs and/or 3-10s through production instead of building Repl,
and therefore allowing for the mps/pps cost of building up the home army by
production instead of allowing the cost of the equivalent number of Repl
and mech Repl. Query also designing for effect in the sense of recognising that
a smart Allied player will have a much larger proportion of armoured divisions
given the scarcity of manpower relative to production points, and further
adjusting PP downwards to discourage this. Or maybe that last bit didn't
feature. I forget.

Whether Greg actually did what is alleged in the preceding
paragraph is something I doubt. My understanding is he adopted a model from the
package provided by the late Hank Meyer, who had in turn been supplied with it
from another source, and the spreadsheet was actually building in some intuitive
assumptions about that model which may or may not have been correct. I have a
copy of that package somewhere and could identify the source but can't see the
point now.

The spreadsheet assumed "historical" U boat builds, which I
think was defined to mean enough to put them in the middle of the one to the
left of middle column at all times with some gradual adjustments when the table
shifted gears, and also had an inbuilt assumption in respect of an historical
rate of attrition, meaning the mean result of the vanilla attrition die roll for
the columns as applicable based on the first set of assumptions. It took into
account that the game seems to assume the Allied player will get ahead,
substantially, after US entry, as to which note where the pre Overlord
reinforcements start out. ( 6 plus months worth of extra A results spread over
31 cycles was about 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 double cycle lots IIRC)

Clear as mud.

The air point and U-boat aspects seemed irresistibly logical
but the concept of penalising sensible play, when there was already an inherent
penalty (the units disappear off the map for lengthy periods) is, with the
benefit of historical hindsight, not in the same category. I remember this being
discussed on this list when it was being implemented, but can't remember if we
actually got to number crunching.

My suggestion is that if you think something needs to be added
back to account for any shortfall (and depending on what assumptions you make,
you can calculate one) add it to the reinforcement track (which still exists
even with Allied production) with the editor. EG, 10 Repl, or 10 AP or whatever.
You may have to add it the turn before something the same built in 0/10/39
arrives at the latest, or maybe not, some experimentation may be required. I am
not sure if the game "clears" the track except for the pre war builds when
allied production is selected, so it may need to be added after turn 1. (or
after 1/10/39 perhaps.)

In the new versions
of WIE (both computer and the new board game) there is the option for Allied
production. I have noticed that using the Allied production schedule with an
average U-boat result there is no way to even come close to reproducing the
?historical? unit entry schedule in the non-Allied-production game. I have
been told that it is the difference between building new Air units verses
re-building destroyed Air units but my analysis is based on ? at least in the
early war ? using all the available British pilots whether for building or
rebuilding. The equation gets more complicated when the US gets into the act
(particularly having to split the production of common Allied units) but it is
still short.